The Speed Queen (14 page)

I got out October 12th, 1985. Lamont took the day off to be with me. He picked me up at the front gate with Gainey in the back. They didn't give me a ten-dollar bill or any of that stuff, I just signed some papers and that was it. Nobody even walked me out.

Natalie had already gone to work on the van. We said goodbye in the room. We'd had a bad night. We both said some things because I was leaving, and she ended up locking herself in the bathroom. Now we were just sorry we'd wasted that time. I told her I'd try to visit.

"That's okay," she said. "I don't expect you to."

"I will try," I said.

She started crying. "I've got to go."

"Tuesday," I promised. "I'll come by for a Frito Pie and a lemon Coke, okay? You can take your break with me."

It made her happy but she was still sniffling. I got her a tissue. She used it and gave it back to me at the door.

"I guess I'll see you," she said.

"Tuesday."

"Okay," she said, and kissed me on the cheek, and holding her with my lips against her neck, I breathed in the smell of her hair. Later I'd steal the shampoo just to keep something of hers.

Below in the courtyard, the van started up, and Natalie turned away from me. I watched her down the stairs. At the door, she waved. When it merged onto 35, she was still looking at me through the window. I waved until the van disappeared. Over the trees I could just see the skeleton of the Ferris wheel, stopped for once. I lit a cigarette and stood at the rail until it was gone, then I went back inside and packed my things.

My first day out was strange. I kept thinking I had to be back at sunset.

Lamont took me straight home. The air conditioning wasn't as strong as Clara Waters. He'd vacuumed and gone food shopping, and Gainey had a new outfit on. I smelled Gainey's neck, and it was sweet, and I swore I'd never leave him again.

"Looks like you don't need me around here," I said.

"There's laundry, if you're looking for something to do," Lamont said.

He put Gainey in the pen with his lovey and pulled me over to the bed. He'd lost some weight, I hadn't noticed in the Road-runner; you could see his ribs. He was too rough, he didn't know when he was hurting me. I thought of the water, the way Natalie's body mirrored mine.

"Oh baby," he said, "oh come on, baby doll, make your big dog bark."

"What's so funny?" he said.

"I'm just so happy," I said.

"You interested in some brand-new Chunky Monkey?" he asked.

"You know me," I said, "I'm always interested."

In Clara Waters they tested you, so I hadn't done anything in six months. My skin shivered when he flicked his lighter. He tapped it and put it in me. I could feel it heating in my veins like neon. The rush came through me like wind from a semi. It was like slam-shifting gears. It was like being the hood ornament on a runaway truck.

"Whoa," I said.

"I got this new guy," Lamont said. He was sitting next to me, tying off with one of my knee-highs. "He says he can get me as much of this as I can handle."

"You ought to. This is primo stuff."

"Yeah, except he won't front it to me. I'd have to float a loan."

"You know anybody like that?" I said.

He went quiet to enjoy the rush, and I laid back on the bed and thought of Natalie at work, sailing across the lot. He rolled over and his hands ran cold up my legs. It still worked, I thought, but I wasn't sure if that was good. In the middle of it, I grabbed his hair like Natalie did to me and showed him how I liked it.

"I guess you're glad to be home, huh?" he said when we were smoking. He put the cold ashtray on my chest for a joke.

"You don't know," I said.

In the corner, Gainey started to cry and I lifted him out of the pen. He wanted his bottle.

"Guess I'll have to shower all by myself," Lamont said.

"Go ahead," I said, and put my robe on.

I set Gainey in his chair and sort of half watched him, looking around the living room. All the furniture was the same, the TV, the drapes. It was like I never left.

I stuck my head into the bathroom. Even with the fan on, the steam was forming drops on the ceiling.

"Lammy," I said.

"What?" he said behind the curtain.

"Can I take the car on Tuesday?"

"Hey," he said, "you're a free woman, you can do what you want."

I was seeing Natalie once a week, more it I could get the car to go shopping on Fridays. It was still warm enough to wear just a skirt and a top. I didn't like having Gainey there. He was buckled into his car seat and couldn't see us.

Natalie was silly. She'd bring out a can of Reddi Wip and a bunch of cherries, or a dish of butterscotch sauce. It got so I brought a towel to be careful of the seats. She liked playing games. I remember the first time she showed me one of her toys. The rubber was shiny like the handgrips on a kid's bicycle, not completely hard. It was way bigger than Lamont.

"What are you going to do with that?" I said.

"What would you like me to do with it?"

"Put it away," I said.

"You're not afraid of it, are you? Watch." She made the whole thing disappear. "See? It's easy. You try."

"I don't think so."

"Don't be such a stiff, Marjorie. It's just fun."

"I'm sorry I'm no fun," I said.

"You sure aren't today," she said, and fit it back into her and started hauling her underwear on.

"I'll try it," I said.

"Forget it."

"Nat."

She fastened her bra and put her top on and snapped the snaps of her skirt.

"Don't go," I said.

"Why?" she said. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Because I love you," I said.

"Right. Once a week for fifteen minutes, twice if I'm lucky. In two weeks I'm not going to have a place to live. Have you even mentioned it to him yet?"

"Yes," I said, though I hadn't. I was still building up to it.

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him you might need a place to stay."

"What did he say?"

"Not much," I said.

"So you haven't actually asked him."

"I'm going to."

"When?" she said, boon.

"I can't believe you," she said. "You're so full of it." She flipped the front seat up so it hit the horn, and Gainey woke up crying. Wind poured in the door. She got out and turned around and stuck her head in and pointed a finger at me. "You've got to figure out what you want," she said, then slammed the door and skated away.

When I got home, Lamont was already there. I could hear him in the bedroom doing something.

"Hey," I called, to make sure it wasn't a burglar. Casa Mia had had a bunch of break-ins; the cops thought it was one guy.

"Hey," Lamont called back.

I got Gainey settled on the floor with his tool bench and his hammer and went in to see what Lamont was up to. I was trying to come up with a way to ask him about Natalie coming to stay with us until she got on her feet.

He was sitting on the floor on the far side of the bed with his back to me, messing with something.

"You're home early," I said. "Did something happen at work?"

"I didn't go," he said, and I thought something was wrong.

I came around the bed to him and saw the gym bag and all the packets of twenty-dollar bills. They slapped together as he fit them back in.

He smiled like Jack Nicholson. "I'm taking the day off."

Natalie moved in with us around Veterans Day. She slept in the living room. The couch pulled out. I was surprised how much stuff she had. It turned out her landlord had stored it for her even though she'd written him a bad check. Things were like that with Natalie, she could make you do things you didn't want to, things you never thought of before.

Lamont didn't want her to stay with us at first because of his business. The less people the better, he said. He didn't trust her like I did —stupid me. But she had a lot of friends over at Oklahoma Baptist who could move the stuff; he liked that.

She'd never done crank before, she was more the coke type. I started her with a few lines in the mornings. She said the first time Lamont hit her she came, which I think was probably true. He liked doing her up, I could tell from the way he held her arm. It was a power thing with him. It always turns out that way with guys-

We were getting along all right, which was amazing. Natalie could cook, and Lamont liked that. Sometimes Natalie was jealous of Lamont but at least now she stopped asking me to leave him. When Gainey went down for his nap we —

Excuse me a second.

Who is it?

No, tell him to call back later — of course I'll take it.

I've got to cut you off for a minute, Mr. Jefferies is on the phone. If it's my stay, are you still going to write the book? I hope so. Gainey can use that movie money.

I'm back. No news — the Tenth Circuit Court is still looking at our appeal. Mr. Jefferies says they're staying late just to work on it. There are three judges, two men and a woman. He thinks one of the guys is on our side and trying to turn one of the others around. They're in Denver, an hour behind us. I hope they don't forget that.

You've got to love Mr. Jefferies. He asked if I was finished with this yet.

"I'm trying," I said. "It's long."

"You don't finish, you don't get paid."

I didn't even know I was getting paid, I said.

"No," he said, "you've already been paid. It's part of the contract. How many questions have you got done?"

"I'm on number forty-eight," I said. "How many are there?"

"A hundred and fourteen. But the ones at the end are quick. They're all about the murders, all the little details, like what you ordered, who sat in the front."

"Natalie sat in front."

"Whatever," he said. "That's how quick you need to answer them. He wants those the most."

"What time is it?"

"Ten twenty-five."

"I've still got to see Sister Perpetua," I said. "I want at least fifteen minutes with her."

"You better get going then."

"Hey," I said, "are you coming out?"

"Only the sister's allowed to see you."

"I know. I'd still like to see you—just to wave, you know, say goodbye face to face."

"Marjorie," he said, all serious like, "don't give up yet. Just answer those questions. I'll call you when they give me their decision."

Now, is that slick? He didn't answer my question and by the time the decision comes down he won't be able to make it out here in time. And on top of that he's trying to be inspirational. I still don't see how we lost the case.

Here are the three appeals that have worked the most over the years: insanity, mistaken identity and insufficient counsel. Mistaken identity is the best. You always see it on TV, these old black guys who've been in prison twenty years. They're always crying they're so happy. You never hear what happens to the insufficient counsel ones; they probably get tried and convicted again. The insane ones disappear for a little and then come back and do it again. Ours isn't any of the big three. We just say I didn't do it.

What I was saying about Natalie living with us is that she helped out. She'd babysit Gainey when Lamont and me wanted to go out alone. She wasn't freeloading, she paid her way. She'd moved from Coit's to Moxie's Hamburger Heaven, where all the carhops roller-skated and they paid twice as much. More important, she helped Lamont with the west side of town. He was having trouble finding people he could trust, and she set him up with some guys who knew her ex-boyfriend. Without her, we couldn't have paid the loan back on time, and if we didn't pay that one back, we couldn't get the next one, which was even bigger. It was like any drug, you always wanted more.

We got to be with each other every afternoon for a few hours. She had a whole backpack full of toys, and I started getting into them. She was right, it was fun. Some you could put on with straps. The first time I did it with her that way I started laughing.

"What are you doing?" she said. "Don't stop."

"This is hard."

"You want me to put it on?"

"You're better at it."

"You know why," she said. "Because I took the time to learn."

Every day it was something new. We'd put the chain on the door and pull the couch out. At four, we'd take a shower and wake Gainey up and start getting supper together. Everything was ready when Lamont walked in the door.

He'd give me a kiss and take Gainey from me. They'd gotten close while I was away.

"What's cooking there, Natalie?" he'd say, and grab a Tecate from the fridge, and we'd sit down like any other family to eat. This went on for a while; we were just marking the days off, waiting for the big loan to come through. Finally it did. The next day — it was around Thanksgiving — Lamont came home and went into the kitchen and called her Nat, and I knew we'd be all right.

In Natalie's book Lamont goes out to the lot of the Wal-Mart that night and brings the money back in a briefcase. I remember reading that and going, "I don't think so."

It was the next morning in some motel room over by Tinker Air Force Base and it was a typewriter case. You needed both hands to carry it. Nothing's heavier than money. Lamont put the chain on and had us sit down on the couch. He opened it on the coffee table. The ink had a strong-smell, like bug spray, or drying paint. Put a dollar under your nose, that's what the whole room smelled like. When I worked the counter at Bionic Burger, my fingers smelled like that all the time. Lamont wouldn't let us touch it until he'd counted it twice. Natalie picked up three packets and started juggling.

"Okay," he said, "that's enough," and gathered it up and locked the case again. "Where should we hide it?"

"The bedroom closet," I said.

"That's the first place they'll look."

"The bathroom," Natalie said. "Under the sink."

"That's the second place."

"It's too big for the freezer," I said, and thought of all the places I had my pints. This was way bigger though, more like a pair of half gallons. It wouldn't fit into the couch springs or shoved into my old Nikes at the back of the closet. You couldn't just stick it in a taped-up box of rice.

We split up, going through the apartment like we were agents searching the place. I went into the kitchen and looked under the sink, in the broiler, even in the microwave. I checked the breadbox on top of the fridge, the freezer, the crisper. I opened all the cupboards, top and bottom. I checked our big soup pot and peeked in the slots of the toaster. I started going through the food, ignoring the boxes I was already using. There was nothing big enough really. There wasn't room in the silverware drawer, and the bottom ones were full of old ice trays and place mats, things we didn't use. Where the counter turned, there was this lazy Susan we kept the cereal on. I didn't even have to spin it around; right in front were two family-size boxes of Lamont's Cap'n Crunch.

In her book, Natalie makes it sound like the stupidest place in the world to hide nine thousand dollars. She makes it into a joke on me. She says her and Lamont knew all about my pints, they just didn't want to get into it with me right then. She says they weren't sure about the Cap'n Crunch From the beginning.

They didn't say a thing about it at the time though. They heard me and came into the kitchen from the other rooms and laughed at the boxes.

"What do you think?" I said.

Lamont picked one up and looked into the mouth of it, then held them together.

"Sure," he said, and smiled so he showed his fangs. "It'll fit."